What did the ancients see in idolatry?
While history tells us that many people found it very attractive, Scripture emphasizes how bad an idea it is. In the Ten Commandments, G-d warns us not to serve any “carved image or likeness,” and the message is oft-repeated through the rest of the Torah.
Why would anyone ascribe Divine knowledge and power to a block of wood or stone, and why does that seem so offensive to G-d?
Back then, as now, many people recognized that a venture's suess wasn’t totally in their control. Life has so many variables that we all need help from the outside, how much better from a ‘higher being.’ So people created deities to help them with their needs. Whatever one wanted to accomplish – moral or immoral – would now be blessed with success by the God one has created. It was god in the service of man. (I don't hyphenate G-d when referring to a non-God).
That was alluring to many and repugnant to the morally-minded.
Creating a 'god' to bless our selfishness is glorifying our own self-centeredness. That’s dangerous and almost certainly going to take us in the wrong direction.
The Torah, in repeatedly warning us against idolatry, is putting us on guard against elevating our own selfishness.
What is selfishness? We tend to think of hedonism and materialism as examples of self-absorbed, G-dless pursuits. They are. But seemingly high-minded objectives can become just as warped, self-serving and harmful.
I’m thinking about the UN and Israel. This Shabbos marks 70 years since the UN’s founding, declaredly to promote ‘equality and peace’ amongst all nations.
So let's consider this: When Muslims controlled Jerusalem’s Old City, no Jews were allowed in the City and thus no Jews were allowed to pray at the Wall. NO Jews allowed. Despite the fact that the Wall is acknowledged by all [respectable?] historians as the remnant of a Jewish Temple built by Herod, close to a millennium before Islam existed.
After Israel’s victory in 1967, all people are permitted to pray at the Wall. ALL people. After their triumph, despite their complete military control of the area, they voluntarily gave the Muslim authorities administration of the mosque above the wall. Jews are not allowed to pray on the Temple Mount. And Palestinian leaders are publicly advocating that Jews not be allowed there at all.
NO Jews allowed.
So where do you think the peace-and-equality-seeking UN might focus their efforts? We all know the answer.
The UN seems to have made an idol out of protecting the perceived underdog (I'm being very generous in guessing at their motives), which has taken them off the moral rails to an absurd extent.
They're pursuing something. But morals and G-dliness aren't it.